Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus write about living a meaningful life with less stuff for 4 million readers. As featured on: ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC, TODAY, NPR, TIME, Forbes, The Atlantic, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and National Post. They live in Missoula, Montana.

Day 18: Home

Sell Your House

Today is another day in which you have a couple of diverging options:

1. Sell Your House. Or, rather, list your house for sale today. There are endless online resources you can use to research this option. Don’t take it lightly, it’s a big decision, but so is choosing a life of minimalism, a life of meaning.

2. Keep Your House But Be Prepared to Sell. What? I can be a minimalist and still own a house? Yes you can. Joshua Becker and his family own a home in Phoenix. The secret here is to be prepared to sell your house if you need to. In otherwords, you should lose your attachment to your house, it’s just a bunch of wood and stone and wires, it should not be a permeant fixture that defines you. It can contain pieces of you—your character, your artistic traits, etc.—but it should not define you. You should define your living space. And the less stuff you have there, the less you will be attached to it, and the more you can enjoy your life.

Ryan is listing his house (condo) for sale immediately. He is doing so using a Realtor, but there are other options as well (e.g., For Sale By Owner, short sale, etc.). Make sure you do your homework and make the decision that is right for you. You should spend some time today doing that homework and making a decision.

Joshua lives in a condo he rents in Dayton. This options gives him some of the niceties of a condo without the commitments and maintenance that a mortgage brings (N.B. it’s also considerably cheaper per month). He also doesn’t have a long term lease (it’s month to month) so he has flexibility and mobility.

Obviously if you don’t own a home, then today is an easy day for you. Or so you thought…

Perhaps you should consider moving into a smaller apartment. Perhaps you don’t need that extra bedroom or that extra space, especially after getting rid of some of your unused furniture that you never use. Perhaps you can save some money that way. Go to Craigslist and find some cheaper apartments in your area (or maybe another area if you’re ready to start a nomadic lifestyle). Avoid longterm leases.

It’s time for you to lose your attachment to your home, it’s weighing you down, and you don’t need that feeling. So sell your house, move into an apartment, and live your life. Wherever you live, that is home.